Li hing mui is a dried, preserved plum.

You suck the seed, you chew the fruit, you spit the pit.

And it's that whole ritual of things that people really remember and identify with in Hawaiʻi.

When you talk about li hing mui, you know you're local, if the glands back here starts to hurt.

It's just a Pavlovian reaction to li hing mui.

It's just like a melting pot when you think about eating it.

ONO!

Hawaiʻi's Food Culture sponsored by Hawaii Gas and Aloha State Daily.

I think everybody who visits local crack seed stores, it's a very nostalgic thing for them.

In Hawaiʻi, crack seed stores are a one stop shop for preserved fruits and assorted snacks.

Li hing mui or dried plum is by far the most popular item.

Kaimuki Crack Seed Store is a local snack shop here in the heart of Kaimuki.

We have over 50 to about 70 different varieties of local dried seeds, goods, plums, fruits and even icees.

So when people think about ginger, they think it's a very old flavor, but surprisingly enough, people are still coming in because it is a very healing remedy when you have a sore throat.

Because there's so many different varieties of plums, the li hing muis always come in different colors, so red versus white, and then you also have the different flavor profiles, so whether it's sweet, sour or salty.

So nowadays, when people hear of the word crack seed, they just think about any dried fruit or plum.

But originally, crack seed is what the name says.

So it is a plum with its pit cracked, and that is so the flavors can get all inside the seed and all inside the flesh of the meat, so that when you suck it, it is full of flavor.

So we are at Manoa Marketplace, at Kay's Crack Seed, and it is one of the few brick and mortar crack seed stores left in Hawaiʻi.

Just three and a half miles away, Kay's Crack Seed has been serving its community for over 40 years.

This is really sweet, but then it has that saltiness.

There's nothing like coming to an old fashioned store like this, where you can order your own custom quantity of crack seed to go.

In some cases, you can mix and match, which I like to do.

This is always an old school favorite, and I'm super surprised that it's still around, and it's actually still very popular with modern day consumers.

So we used to refer to this as horse poop, because it looks like horse poop.

It's basically whole seed and it's rolled in licorice.

It produces a very unique flavor, but it's delicious.

It's just, it just looks funny.

Places like Kay's Crack Seed, which is in a community where there's a lot of families, it still serves as a place where kids like to come after school.

And I think a lot of the parents have these really nostalgic feelings about crack seed stores, so they encourage their kids to do it.

And then it just keeps feeding the whole community and family atmosphere of places like Manoa Marketplace.

Preserve fruits in China and Taiwan, they go back centuries, and really it was all about the seasonality.

How do you keep the fruits edible through the various different seasons?

The monsoon seasons, along transport routes.

And then over the course of time, is where it became something more cultural, more regional and a little bit more refined.

Crack seed was brought to Hawaiʻi by Chinese plantation workers in the late 19th century.

As demand grew, companies like Yick Lung were able to make crack seed a commercial success.

My family business began with my great grandfather, Yee Sheong, who immigrated to Hawaiʻi back in the late 1800s.

It started with a small family shop in Honolulu, back on Vineyard Street.

You know, it grew organically, basically serving the local community, getting to know people.

So over the 1970s and 80s, Yick Lung had really become very closely associated with with crack seed, as you guys know it here in Hawaiʻi.

"Sometimes when we're happy we reach for the one with natural flavors of Yick Lung!"

Hawaiʻi didn't necessarily invent preserved fruit, but what's really neat about it is that it made it its own.

Crack seed in a sense, really, again, it's not something you eat, it's something you work at, right?

You suck the seed, you chew the fruit, you spit the pit.

And it's that whole ritual of things that people really remember and identify with in Hawaiʻi.

As kids, we walk into their crack seed shop and all of a sudden, our mouth would just water.

Boom!

Beyond a light snack li hing mui is widely used as a condiment, enhancing fruit drinks and desserts with its signature flavor.

I used to work at Crack Seed Center Ala Moana and back in the day.

This is like the 80s, there was a li hing powder that was left at the bottom of the jar, and we didn't sell that like we just kept it for ourselves.

And we used to sprinkle on everything, all of our desserts, on all of our snacks.

I'm sure everybody knows what icee is it's a beloved carbonated slushy style type of drink.

But like I said, I think Hawaiʻi is such a melting pot that we decided to integrate li hing mui juice and li hing mui powder into the icee so it gives like a tangy, salty, sour type of taste into the icees.

Every morning you make a new batch?

Yes, every morning.

Oh, there's the wet li hing mui.

Lo and behold, here you are, many decades later, and everybody's using it on everything.

They use it to rim their cocktail glasses and they put it in cookies.

It's probably one of the most important condiments of our time.

Thank you so much.

Your total today is $34.17.

Thanks aunty!

Thank you!

These days, crack seed stores are becoming harder to find.

Those that still stand, endure supported by the communities that cherish them.

Thank you.

When we think about crack seed store, and we think about Kaimuki Crack Seed Store, we always think about Mr.

Young.

When he announced his retirement, I think everyone was so sad about it, but it was so well deserved.

You know, him and his family ran this shop tirelessly by themselves, and they kept it alive, and you know, they supported their family, and they raised so many, kids and generations already.

So we're very grateful.

Oh okay!

Hoo!

Never too strong.

Having this kind of thing that brings out nostalgia for everyone is kind of a nice thing to pass on to our kids, and just gives us something like a thread of commonality, because you can always say, you know your local if, and then you name your favorite crack seed, and everybody will be like, yeah, so.

It's a good way to keep the community alive and just have something that generations can talk about with each other.